


Taarradhin

by drinkbloodlikewine, whiskeyandspite



Series: Midnighters Timestamps [10]
Category: Adam (2009), Charlie Countryman (2013), Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Arguments, Cuddling, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Misunderstandings, New Meetings, long-awaited surprise ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-16 16:31:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4632201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/pseuds/drinkbloodlikewine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“You got a text.”</i>
</p><p>  <i>“I’ll check it later,” Adam grins, slipping his hands immediately down to work at Nigel’s belt, knees already drawn up around him and eyes hooded in preemptive pleasure. Despite Adam’s shyness in most things, he seems to have next to no qualms about opening the door to a delivery guy wearing nothing but his underwear and a boner.</i></p><p>  <i>God bless Adam fucking Raki.</i></p><p>A misunderstanding and misinterpretations... an argument and an... interesting resolution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Beta read by our incredible [noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!!

For Nigel to exist alongside Adam, as happily as they have for years now - fucking years - it requires a bit of distance. Not from Adam, by most measures, no. Even after three fucking years Adam can hardly cross the room without Nigel reeling him back in and sticking his tongue in his mouth. He hardly lays down in bed before Nigel is laying heavy atop him. And Nigel never once wakes up without seeking Adam for a kiss, even when Nigel’s hangovers make him feel like he’s shoved icepicks in his eyes.

Even when he’s out of the country, he sends him a text when he wakes up.

He’s learned how to make their phones show kissy faces.

But a distance has formed between Adam’s side of their work and Nigel’s own. It isn’t that he doesn’t want to know, it’s that the onslaught of details needs thinning for Nigel to be able to grasp it, examine it, and decide on a direction. If Adam is the faucet through which information flows, Nigel is the valve that brings it to a trickle.

Sometimes.

And sometimes the whole fucking pipe just blows and Adam talks himself hoarse.

Were Nigel feeling therapeutic about the whole fucking thing, he’d call it a healthy distance. Adam works uninterrupted by Nigel’s groping hands and nagging curiosity, and Nigel doesn’t have to worry about the vast majority of Adam’s clicking unless it’s something that needs attention. Though the concept of balancing his work with another is still goddamn unnerving to Nigel, they work well together.

They really fucking do.

And not once has that thought ever waylaid his curiosity about all those goddamn clicks.

Adam is still on the couch when Nigel comes home, same position, down to the turn of his foot against the cushion, headphones on listening to the white noise that Adam claims calms his mind enough to work for longer periods of time than he can without it. There is tea on the table beside him, cold now, most likely made and forgotten hours before, and his hands aren’t moving over the keys.

Not quickly.

They shift in intermittent machine-gun bursts before Adam just waits, does nothing but watch the screen before him.

He isn’t hacking. So Nigel comes up behind him to peel his headphones free and kiss Adam’s cheek. He jerks so hard the laptop nearly upends onto the floor, and with wild eyes Adam seeks behind himself to look at Nigel.

“You scared me,” he says, unnecessarily, and then settles, calm again, back to the couch to accept Nigel’s greeting properly. “What time is it? I thought you said you were going to be out late today.”

His screen blinks beneath a keystroke and switches windows. Nigel squints at it, rows of numbers from this region and that. And not, it seems, what Adam was working on before.

Or just another part of it.

Nigel draws a breath and exhales it against Adam’s hair, rubbing his cheek into freshly-washed curls, clean and unfragranced. Only the scent of Adam, there, when Nigel buries his nose and kisses his head.

“I wanted to surprise you, darling,” he says. “Not scare you.”

Adam’s smile is warm when it comes and he nuzzles back against Nigel. He lifts a hand to close down the screen before reaching behind himself to slip his fingers into Nigel’s hair and gently tug it.

“I’m glad you’re home,” he says, and shifts in increments until he can kiss Nigel properly. There is still that lingering tension in the air - simply from the response to Nigel’s approach, the change of screen and the immediate closing of it - but Adam’s kiss is entirely genuine, enthusiastic, warm.

Just a surprise gone wrong, nothing more.

“We should get take-out for dinner,” Adam mumbles against him.

Nigel blinks at this, and manages a laugh. It dispels a little of the thickness in the air, and a little more parts when their lips do, too, pressed together as Nigel frames Adam’s cheeks with his hands. An upside-down kiss, lingering, before Nigel steps away with a glance to the computer.

“What’s the occasion? You never want fucking take-out,” he says, bending to pull off his shoes and toss them aside.

“Because it takes twenty minutes to get here and I can get you hard in ten,” Adam replies, stretching out on the couch and setting the computer aside, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands before arching his neck back to watch Nigel upside down in their apartment. He’s missed him, quite desperately. Even when Nigel just goes out for a day, not a week or a month - never again, they make sure to plan around things like that - Adam still waits up for him, and when he can’t, still pulls him into bed, warm and sleepy.

“If you like.”

Adam rolls to his stomach, folding his arm to the couch. He sets his chin on it. “I would like,” he says. “Take-out and getting you hard.”

“Doesn’t take ten fucking minutes,” Nigel mutters.

“Not exactly, no. On average.”

“Fucking Adam.” He tugs open a drawer that in any other New York apartment would be filled to bursting with take-out menus, and takes out the one that they’ve bothered to keep. They make a hamburger that’s agreeable to Adam, add cheese, no tomatoes or lettuce but onions are okay. Fries. Strawberry milkshake.

Nigel gets the same just because it’s easier that way.

He pads back barefoot past Adam’s outstretched fingers and pats himself down, before reaching for Adam’s cellphone instead.

1-1-1-0 to unlock it. Part of Nigel’s name in binary, apparently. Adam tried to explain it once - more than fucking once - but he couldn’t agree that zero should be off when it’s clearly fucking on, and one should be off because it’s clearly fucking closed.

Their conversation hadn’t gotten very far, but the code was always the same.

A quick dial to the place and an easy order. The phone vibrates when Nigel hangs up and by muscle memory alone he opens the message. It takes a moment for it to register that it isn’t for him, and that he doesn’t understand what it means at all. There is a series of letters and numbers, a date, a time, and a code with a question mark. Nigel stares a moment longer before locking the phone and setting it aside, shifting to kneel over Adam as he squirms to roll onto his back again.

“You got a text.”

“I’ll check it later,” Adam grins, slipping his hands immediately down to work at Nigel’s belt, knees already drawn up around him and eyes hooded in preemptive pleasure. Despite Adam’s shyness in most things, he seems to have next to no qualms about opening the door to a delivery guy wearing nothing but his underwear and a boner.

God bless Adam fucking Raki.

His belt pulls free and already he’s half-hard. Adam presses his palms between Nigel’s legs and rubs firm as they kiss, Nigel holding himself up with his hands on the arm of the couch, set to either side of Adam’s head. He groans against his little bird’s lips and rocks against him.

It’s just business.

The text and the computer.

It’s just fucking business.

And Adam will make Nigel aware when he needs to do so.

Nigel sets a warm hand against Adam’s throat and turns his head aside. Holding Adam’s earlobe between his teeth he sucks until Adam’s body stiffens towards the ceiling and he whimpers. Cheeks smeared in ruddy scarlet, Adam bites his lip and releases it, breath jerking faster as he palms harder at Nigel’s cock.

“Ten fucking minutes,” Nigel mutters. “Fucking bullshit, Adam.”

Adam just laughs, working Nigel’s pants open next to shove his hand into his underwear and stroke him properly.

“On average.”

“Based on fucking what?”

“Hangovers.”

Nigel laughs, breathing a curse that sounds like worship against Adam’s skin as he moves to work Adam’s pants off too, delighting in the undulating arches up against him, the needy little gasps and sounds and grasping hands. He is beautiful. He is entirely Nigel’s to do with as he pleases and Nigel finds he rarely wants much more than to give Adam anything he asks for.

“I missed you,” Adam breathes against him, ducking his head to watch them both rutting in their underwear like teenagers. “Don’t go anywhere tomorrow.”

Nigel smears a kiss against the corner of his mouth, his chin, turning his gaze down in turn to see their hips curl together, the ridges of their cocks brush stiff. Adam’s wearing blue underpants today, the little Y-front ones that Nigel bought in fucking bulk after the red pair Adam wore for his birthday. The old briefs have increasingly gone missing, strategically tossed to the bin when Nigel does laundry.

“What if I do?” Nigel grins, teasing a finger beneath Adam’s elastic waistband. “Going to tie me to the fucking bed, darling?”

Adam draws a breath as his cock tip is bared, and shudders a moan as Nigel gently snaps the waistband free against his shaft. Bright red, his head glistens moist against his belly, and Nigel drives his own down firmer against it.

“I would just have to miss you more,” Adam tells him. “And touch myself without you.”

A curse is shoved against his throat before Nigel’s lips close to suck a hot bruise against him. He is heavier than Adam, by a fucking lot, but Adam’s body jerks upward enough to move him. Moaning across Nigel’s ear, Adam slides his hands to the back of Nigel’s underwear to shove them down and bare him.

“You’re a fucking tease, baby,” Nigel whispers, damp lips brushing against his ear. “You’re fucking naughty and you know it, don’t you?”

Adam just laughs, warm and delighted, squirming up against Nigel, kissing him and drawing his nails over his back in pleasure. He knows.

They are both close, panting and dripping by the time the buzzer goes for the takeout and Adam wriggles off the couch to get it, happy to have Nigel watch him get the door with his shirt half off his shoulder and one side of his underwear wedged between his cheeks. The toes of one foot draw up and down against the other leg as he pays and takes their order from the curious and furiously blushing delivery guy.

They eat their burgers cold, sprawled on the floor in front of the television, and go to bed late.

\---

“Darling.”

Adam looks up from his book at Nigel sitting before his own computer, checking some of the log pages Adam had shown him how to use.

“Yeah?”

“Denver?”

Adam blinks.

“What do we have in Denver, baby?”

“Nothing?”

“There’s a scheduled pick-up for a private vehicle logged in for next week -”

Adam scrambles off the couch to take a look, and with a sigh reaches to adjust the information. There is a pick-up due, it is due out in a private vehicle but it’s from Dresden. Germany. Nowhere near fucking Denver.

“I was thinking about something else,” Adam shrugs, returning to his book.

Nigel watches him go, bare fucking naked and beautiful, long legs stretching up to a perfectly plump ass that sadly vanishes as Adam drapes himself back onto the couch. He sets his book against his chest again and lets his arm rest behind his head. For a moment, Nigel wonders if Adam realizes how fucking lovely he is, creamy skin highlighted in rosy pinks, bottom lip held pensive between big white teeth. Long lashes and messy hair and cock soft against his pointed hip -

And that’s it, because in the moment after, when Nigel regains his breath again, his thoughts return to Denver.

He turns back to his computer with a sigh and scrolls through the reams of information. Pick-up here, drop-off there. Payment there, delivery here. The profits converted into US dollars bolsters him briefly, especially his small-arms pet projects.

He flicks his finger and lets the screen whizz by, resting his hands behind his head.

“Why the fuck were you thinking about Denver?”

“It isn’t Denver. It’s Dresden. I entered it incorrectly, like when you text me that you want to duck me and that isn’t at all what you mean.”

Nigel grins, but it’s brief. He listens to a page turn and reaches for Adam’s phone set aside on the desk. No new messages.

He glances across his shoulder, and spreads his shoulders a little, folding his arms to the desk. Four silent taps unlock Adam’s phone. Another opens his messages. Nigel, Nigel, Nigel, Nigel, unknown number.

Unknown fucking number.

Tap.

_can’t wait to see you_

Nigel’s breath leaves him for a moment and he stares at the message like it’s the Rosetta fucking stone. A quick scroll reveals nothing from Adam, but more messages from the number. Infrequent, once a week or once a month before, enough that they should get the message that this is the wrong fucking number since Adam hasn’t replied.

_can’t wait to see you_

Adam hasn’t replied _on here_ yet. Nigel is tempted to for him, for just a moment.

Behind him, Adam takes a breath and hums it out. He shifts on the couch so he’s lying prone on it, legs outstretched and toes splaying and curling as he continues reading his book, not a care in the world. Wrist against the couch holding his book, free hand curling his hair over and over a finger before letting it free. He looks like a figure from one of the paintings they’d seen at the Met together, Adonis or Hyacinth or fucking Ganymede.

Who wouldn’t want to see him?

Who in the fucking world wouldn’t want to be near him?

Nigel slides Adam phone away and fishes a cigarette from his pocket. He ignores the grumble of disapproval from the couch and drags so deep he can feel fucking fire in his throat, or what little airway is left with it clenched so tight it’s like there’s a fist around it. Billowing smoke, some scant fucking confirmation that he’s got any air left in him at all, Nigel stands and shuts his computer.

And he goes to the kitchen.

And he pours himself a fucking drink.

Only with whiskey thickening in his mouth, unpleasantly sharp, singeing his voice to roughness, does Nigel ask, “Do you know anyone in Denver?”

There’s a pause, just a breath, but Nigel’s head spins as Adam answers, “Dresden, Nigel.”

“Fucking Denver, Adam.”

Adam lifts his eyes to his partner, taking in the glass of whiskey, the sour expression, the furrowed brows and tension in his muscles. He looks fit for a fight, far too upset over something so little as a typo. But then, it is Nigel.

Adam just takes a breath and releases it with a nod. “Friends,” is all he says.

“What kind of friends?”

“What kind of friends can someone have, Nigel? Friends. Friends of the family but also my friends. People I know from before. People I know through friends of friends. People.”

Adam doesn’t tell lies. Nor, to be perfectly fucking frank, does Adam make mistakes, clever fucking kid. He is blunt, guileless in his honesty. And though Nigel doesn’t doubt the truth of his words - _Friends. People._ \- Nigel is also keenly fucking aware that the most convincing deceptions aren’t lies at all.

They’re the truth, inarguable and verifiable.

He drags hard enough from his cigarette for it to crackle, filtering it through veins and nerves and spilling smoke and tension into the air. His hand clenches to a fist against the counter and relaxes. Clenches, and relaxes. He tries to slow his heart to match the steady pulse but it won’t be moved.

Adam wouldn’t.

He wouldn’t, not like this, not without some even-toned conversation about why Nigel _can’t live here anymore_ and how he’s _met a very nice person_ and that Nigel _smokes too much and swears too much_ and that Adam is tired of it. Tired of him. Tired of all the shit he’s dragged into Adam’s life.

Surely he wouldn’t. Surely he fucking wouldn’t.

Nigel spans his hand against the counter and sets the empty glass into the sink, stubbing out his cigarette in one of their mismatched, ubiquitous ashtrays as he returns. He makes his way towards the bedroom, but his steps grow heavy beside the couch and he stops. It is hard for even Nigel not to compare his own battered body, scarred and ruined, clad in holey boxers hugging tight to tired muscle, to the beautiful kid laid bare beside him.

Soft fingers curl around his own and squeeze, and Nigel returns the gentle pressure.

“You know I love you, don’t you, darling?”

Adam sets his book aside and turns his head to look at Nigel properly. This smile comes slow and lights up his entire face. It narrows his eyes and pulls wrinkles into the corners, it pushes gentle dimples into his cheeks and he looks entirely radiant. A smile like that cannot be faked. Not by anyone.

“I love you too,” Adam tells him, squeezing his fingers again. “An awful lot.” He watches Nigel a moment more and then lets him go long enough to close his book and bookmark it. “Are you going to bed?”

A second wave of anger pulls Nigel’s pulse thick and his senses swaying, snaring nauseating in his belly. Maybe it is that simple. Adam has friends. Why wouldn’t he have friends? Just because Nigel can’t fucking manage it doesn’t mean that normal people can’t. And he was talking with them, and thinking of Denver.

_can’t wait to see you_

A video chat, maybe. Or someone visiting the city. Adam’s gentle tug draws Nigel’s attention back and Nigel could break glass and swallow it whole if it would cut away the guilt that sickens him now. Adam wouldn’t, but Nigel would, before. Years before. He did, and he felt like fucking shit about it.

But Adam isn’t Nigel.

Thank _fuck_ for that.

“Going to lay down,” Nigel says. “You should read, sparrow.”

Adam lets him go as Nigel goes, watching after him with a gentle frown before packing himself up and turning off the lights to follow Nigel to the bedroom. Adam falls asleep a few hours later, head against Nigel’s chest and book open by his shoulder.

Nigel doesn’t sleep ‘til the early hours, and only then because Adam mumbles in his sleep that he wants Nigel to come to bed.

\---

“I can pick you up.”

Nigel’s greeting freezes in his throat and he listens, pressed against the hallway wall with the door still held open with his shoe. Adam’s pacing, he can hear it, not in a nervous way but in a way that suggests he has too much energy and nowhere to spend it. He wonders how many sodas Adam has had. He wonders what he’s done today.

“No, I haven’t told him yet,” Adam replies, pacing closer to the hallway and away again. “It’s the one time. We’re not that busy right now, he won’t mind.”

Nigel’s heart fills his head with an echoing thrum and he wishes he could reach into his own chest and squeeze it until it stops. Fucking stops. He can hardly hear his own shaky breath when it passes dry lips, he can hardly hear Adam when he speaks again.

“We’ll have fun. It will be nice, I think. Something different, at least.”

A pause, and Nigel blinks past that darkness tunneling his vision but for sparks of white, blinding.

“Don’t worry about him. It’s fine. Yes, okay. See you then.”

Nigel doesn’t remember hitting the door, but he hears its bang as it collides with the wall. He doesn’t remember stalking into the apartment but he’s standing in it. He doesn’t remember Adam ending the call but there he fucking stands, phone pressed against his chest.

“That was really loud,” Adam says, a laugh carrying his words. He shakes his head as though to shake the adrenaline from himself and pockets his phone, stepping closer. “I was going to surprise you with dinner, but you got home early. And it wouldn’t have been a surprise considering we usually make the same thing, but it would have been a surprise that I made it. I think.”

Adam can feel the tension radiating from Nigel before him and instinctively steps back when Nigel steps closer.

“What’s wrong?”

Nigel runs his hand down his face, as if to clear the haze of anger that all but blinds him. He can hardly see Adam through it, but he can fucking hear him. He can feel him, open and curious, and it’s enough to make Nigel laugh. A startling, ugly sound, that draws in Adam’s brows.

“It wasn’t hard for you at all, was it, darling?”

The word burns to ash on his tongue.

“No,” Nigel answers for him, before Adam can take a breath. And ask him again _what’s wrong_ and laugh again and curve his words to fit just right again Nigel’s idiot heart. “No, of _course_ it wasn’t fucking hard for you. Just telling the truth, right, Adam? Because you’ve not done a _fucking_ thing wrong, have you, _Adam_!”

His fist connects with the wall hard enough to leave an imprint in cracked plaster, the pain just a louder buzz in Nigel’s ears.

Adam jerks back in surprise and lets his eyes linger on the hole in the wall of their apartment. It has been a long time since Nigel had taken his anger out on the house, or the furniture in it, or the laptops they owned. Usually he hit enough and then stopped, and Adam could tend to his hand and curl around him and calm him down more.

Right now Adam knows for a fact that Nigel has not hit enough things.

“I find a few things hard,” Adam counters softly.

Nigel feels his lungs rupture like burst balloons, with a sudden agony and a rush of air. It could almost be a laugh but even Adam knows that it isn’t one, not that sound, as Nigel’s hands collapse and snare into fists.

“Of course you do, angel. Adam fucking Raki who taps away on his computer and makes money from _my_ business. Adam fucking Raki who can’t be fucking bothered to wash his own fucking dishes or do the laundry. Get me a soda, Nigel. Come to bed. Don’t go out. And I do it all, don’t I? While you -”

He can’t say the words, and the table Nigel upturns doesn’t fill that void.

“While you fucking -”

He can’t say the words, and the lamp that crashes to the floor doesn’t fill that void.

“Nigel -”

“Don’t,” he snarls, teeth bared sharp as glass grinds to dust beneath his shoes. “Don’t ever say my fucking name like that again. Is it just fucking sex, Adam? Are you in love? How many, and no one any the fucking wiser? But they know about me, don’t they, a fucking joke while you get fucked _squirming_ and pleading and laughing at how fucking stupid I’ve been -”

“What are you talking about?” Adam asks, voice too quiet to hear, another step from Nigel has Adam repeating the words louder, pushing his hands into his pockets as he forces himself to stand his ground, to keep his eyes on Nigel though he wants nothing more than to look past him.

Nigel smashes his fist down against the table and Adam jerks again, swallowing but staying where he is, expression one of petulance and confusion, and beneath it all a cool sort of betrayal. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t _know_ what’s going on and Nigel knows that logically he should accept that for what it is. Nothing. Nothing has happened. Everything has been misunderstood.

But instead he thinks of more.

What other things Adam is hiding.

What other things he has done that Nigel can discover, like peeling a fucking rotting orange apart to see the filthy pieces within.

“The fucking messages,” Nigel lists. “The phone call just now. Fucking _Denver_ , Adam.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“Are you fucking _serious. Adam._ ”

“Yes!” Adam’s voice rings loud for a moment. Louder than Nigel’s snarl, louder than the silence that rings after. “Yes. I am serious. I’m not _fucking_ anyone, Nigel. Who would I do that with? Why?”

Nigel steps back, hands upraised, because if he fucking doesn’t, he’s going to do something he regrets. The promise is there, singing through his blood, driving him onward in retribution, in _vengeance_ for a betrayal whose depths he can only fucking imagine. He doesn’t want to fucking imagine it. He can’t stop himself. Strange hands against Adam’s velvet cheeks, a thumb against his tongue. The little kitten sounds that Adam makes as he clings to another body, and another, and another, and how wide-eyed he must have fucking been as he cleaned someone else’s fucking come off his legs and sweetly laughed, _don’t worry about him_.

“Because it isn’t fucking, is it Adam?”

“No!”

“No,” Nigel agrees, his voice lowering. “I see it now. Crystal fucking clear. You’re telling the truth - _your_ fucking _bullshit_ truth -”

“Yes, Nigel,” Adam says, jaw working, hands trembling as he folds his arms.

Nigel doesn’t remember coming close again, but he watches Adam’s eyes widen as he sets a hand against his throat.

“Because you aren’t _fucking_ , are you? You’re making love.”

Adam’s lips part, his brows furrow in surprise and displeasure, and in a motion neither expect he slaps Nigel’s arm away from him and shoves hard against Nigel’s chest.

“You like making up stories, for someone who says he hates fiction,” Adam hisses, he’s trembling, from adrenaline and panic and worry all. He shoves Nigel again, while the man tries to get his bearings that Adam even thought to. “You like making things bigger than they are. You never ask questions - you just like assuming. And the more you assume, the stranger your stories become, but you never _think_ to _ask me_.”

Adam fists his hands at his sides and storms past Nigel back towards the front door, yanking it open fully from where it had rested against the frame.

“I am not fucking anyone. I am not making love to anyone. Not anyone else who isn’t you, when you want to,” Adam tells him. “I have friends in Denver. Friends who have wanted to meet you for a long time because you are the most important and long-lasting thing in my life since my dad died. And I knew, I _knew_ you would get nervous at the idea of meeting anyone so I wanted it to be a surprise. Something small. Dinner, here, together. You and me and my friend from Denver, but you had to make it this - this -”

Adam shakes now, rocking softly on his heels and to his toes and back again. “Get out,” he says. “Out. I don’t care where. But you will keep hitting things and I will start hitting you and I don’t know how hard I’ll hit if I start, I am really, really angry.”

The words hit like icy water and Nigel draws a sudden breath, lungs filling.

“Adam -”

“Fucking _go_!”

Nigel is shoved again. He is struck, against his back. He hardly feels it but he feels the weight of the door as Adam slams it shut. Spinning, Nigel throws himself against it as locks snap into place.

“Adam, fucking _wait_ -”

“I’ll call the police. Nigel, I will,” comes Adam’s voice, pressed against the door. Another lock. Another. “I have my phone and they won’t like what they see if they come.”

Nigel turns his cheek against the door, seeking for anything he can say, the strength to rip the door from its hinges or apologize or -

_Fucking go._

So he does, and a laugh carries into the cool evening air as Nigel realizes, loathing, how easy it was to find the strength for that.

\---

It takes several bouts of deliberate knocking for Nigel to realize it’s knocking at all, and not the pounding in his head from too much liquor and too little sleep.

He’s paid up for the week, and he’s in a high end place, so it shouldn’t be some skeevy asshole come to tell him to vacate the room for a few hours so a whore can make her rent payments for the week. He listens to the knocking, patient and consistent, rounds of five then four then five again, over and over.

“Fuck.” Loud enough that the knocking stops at three before resuming again.

“Nigel, you’re awake. Open the door please.”

Nigel tangles in the sheets in his hurry to stand, the room liquid before his bleary eyes, and he hits the floor with a bang and a curse. Not just hungover. Still fucking drunk. He shoves himself to standing, unsteady, still clothed from the night before and reeking of stale cigarette smoke.

He unlatches the unfamiliar locks as quickly as he can, accidentally locking one again in the process and hissing a curse as that, too, as if he can startle it into opening. Days they’ve not spoken, fucking days and nights, and of course Adam found him here - Adam always fucking finds him - and as Nigel’s hand rests on the knob he prays.

He fucking prays that Adam isn’t standing there with Nigel’s clothes in a bag.

When he jerks the door open hard enough to nearly hit himself, and stands, staggering, and before he can even focus on Adam in front of him he whispers, whiskey-rough, “I’m sorry. I’m fucking sorry, Adam, before you tell me to go fuck myself, baby -”

Adam hushes Nigel gently and presses a cold plastic bottle into his hand before he can say anything else. Then he pushes past, carefully, into the room and lets Nigel close the door behind him.

“You’re really drunk,” Adam states, and it sounds much more fond that it does annoyed. “You’ve cleared out the minibar, and your credit card has receipts on it for a lot of whiskey from the liquor store down the road. A lot. You need to sober up, you’ll be really sick.”

Nigel blinks, tries to, in sync, and gazes down at the bottle in his hand.

Gatorade.

Nigel could never in a thousand fucking lifetimes love anyone more.

He moves slowly, as much to give Adam space as to keep his own nausea at bay. A quiet hiccup gives him away before he uncaps the drink to guzzle it, and as he does, past the bright yellow plastic, he watches Adam. He watches as Adam surveys the destruction that Nigel has laid upon the hapless hotel room. He watches the thin disapproval in his expression and how quickly it eases. He watches how Adam sits, carefully, in an armchair strewn with Nigel’s clothes, bought for cheap two days before.

Nigel closes the door quietly, and follows. Forcing himself to keep distance, remembering all too fucking well the last time he touched Adam, Nigel curls his hands around the bottle instead and holds it between his knees as he sits on the edge of the bed.

“I’ll stay away,” he promises. “I will. You can keep the fucking business or sell it off or nuke it, I can find something else to do. I won’t even go home -” Nigel stops, grimacing as he adjusts. “The apartment. Just toss my things. I swear on my mother, Adam, I won’t.”

Adam blinks at him, waits a moment and then moves to perch on the bed next to Nigel, one leg curled beneath him, hands down against the messy sheets to hold on. He watches Nigel next to him, exhausted and drunk and upset, and swallows.

“Please come home,” Adam whispers. “I did the laundry and the dishes. I cleaned up the lamp from the floor.” Another swallow and Adam sighs, looking out at the room at large again. “It was stupid,” he says.

“What was, baby?”

“Trying to surprise you. With that. You don’t like change, neither of us like change. I didn’t think it through enough, I went from a selfish perspective, that I would want to see my friend, and because of that that you would be excited too. You aren’t. I can’t expect you to be, and it was stupid that I didn’t ask you about it first. I’m sorry.”

Nigel’s muscles ripple, resisting the urge to reach for him, still. He watches Adam’s eyes even as they avoid his own, wide and blue and endless. He squeezes the bottle tighter and remembers the fear and hurt that flashed white when he grabbed him.

“You didn’t do a fucking thing wrong,” Nigel tells him, as serious as he had been when he sputtered apologies, as serious as when he swore that against everything in his heart he would leave him be. “Darling - Adam,” he corrects, and Adam shakes his head.

“I’ve missed you calling me that.”

Nigel closes his eyes as Adam rests his forehead against Nigel’s shoulder. Slowly, he unfurls his fingers, knuckles white, and brings his hand to rest between Adam’s shoulders. Slowly, he turns his head, and nuzzles against Adam’s curls.

“You shouldn’t trust me,” he murmurs. “After this, you shouldn’t, but if you do at all, believe me, darling, when I fucking tell you that I was wrong. Not you. Not you, angel, not anything you did.” His throat jerks as he swallows, sighing warmth against Adam’s hair. “I am so sorry.”

Adam shivers against him, just one motion, and settles closer, entirely relaxed, contented. It’s forgiveness enough, and Nigel wonders what in the hell he has done to earn it, earn Adam at all. Adam moves a hand to rest on Nigel’s thigh and squeezes lightly, reassurance, touch, slow connection again. Years, now, they have lived together. Bought the apartment out, controlled most of the major drug routes, a few of the new weapons ones. Years, they have made love and laughed ‘til they cried and cuddled and read and talked.

Years.

“We should talk about it,” Adam says quietly, and the words don’t hold the usual distaste that that combination would, coming from anyone else. “So all the things we didn’t understand we will, for next time.”

Nigel slides his arm around Adam’s waist, just to keep him close, but when Adam lays a hand against his chest, Nigel goes where Adam guides him. They lay back, both aching with tired muscles and tired hearts, tired heads that separate have still found their thoughts circling in search of the other. Nigel lets the bottle rest against his back as he turns to face Adam, their foreheads touching.

“I don’t know what to say,” Nigel admits, an almost-smile tugging at his lips. Adam returns it, a little warmer, and Nigel shivers when Adam’s fingers press against his stubbled cheek.

“You were angry,” Adam asks, and Nigel nods, a joyless laugh leaving him.

“Furious,” he murmurs. His tongue parts his lips and he closes his eyes. “Like my fucking heart stopped beating as soon as I thought -” A sigh shakes free, joined by a tight smile. “That you loved someone else. That I’m not enough. That you didn’t love me.”

He turns his head aside to cough, lungs raw from smoke, and nuzzles closer again when he turns back.

“You can do better than me. I fucking know that.”

Adam just touches him, listens to Nigel speak, really listens. He doesn’t understand why Nigel thinks Adam would leave him, who he would go to. But Nigel’s mind works differently to Adam’s, he thinks differently and reads between lines Adam can't even see. So Adam explains the best way he can, because he hardly understands it either.

"I don't love anyone else,” he says. "Or anyone better. I don't, because I love you, and you make me happy, and you make me angry, and horny and hungry and I miss you when you go away." Adam frowns slightly, but it is more pensive than angry. "I wish I could make you believe you are all the things that make me happy. I'm not easy to live with. I'm selfish and pedantic and stuck in my routines and still you love me. Somehow, you still love me."

Words get tangled, so Adam just presses closer with a sigh, resting his hand against Nigel’s heart as it beats against his fingertips.

"I should tell you I love you more often. I forget, sometimes, that you can’t hear it when I think it. But I do. Many times a day, I promise."

Nigel listens. He trusts. He curls his arms around Adam and brings the kid atop him, happy beneath his weight and his studious gaze and the fingers that span his cheek. Nigel slips a curl of hair behind Adam’s ear and when their mouths meet, wrapping softly together, Nigel’s breath hitches. Just that, no more, but enough.

“I’ll ask,” Nigel says, jaw flexing to keep his eyes dry. “Next time I don’t know, I’ll ask. Even if I’m fucking pissed, because I - I don’t know if I can fight that, I’ll still ask you, I promise.”

“It’s okay to be angry,” Adam tells him, “but I like it more when you’re gentle.”

That the word could ever be applied to Nigel is enough that he laughs, low and full. Whatever they are, however they’ve come together, it’s absurd. Fucking ridiculous. And somehow, somehow, it fucking works. Adam kisses Nigel’s smile, widening when Nigel feels Adam’s own. He rubs his hands along Adam’s back and lifts his chin when Adam tucks his head beneath.

“I love you, darling,” Nigel sighs, before he smiles enough that it makes his head ache. “I can’t believe you did the fucking laundry.”

He feels Adam blink, long lashes against his throat, and squeezes him closer when Adam says, “I was running out of clothes.”

Nigel grins and tucks a finger beneath Adam’s chin, raising their eyes to meet.

“Tell me how to make this up to you, angel.”

“The laundry? It’s already done.”

“Not the fucking laundry, you know I’ll fucking do it,” Nigel murmurs, kissing Adam. Again and again, rolling him to his side and then beneath, so that Nigel can look down at him and take him in, his little sparrow. His angel. “Being a fucking asshole. Touching you like that. Breaking your things. Anything, sweetheart.”

Adam’s smile twitches wider, and his fingers flutter soft as feathers against Nigel’s cheeks.

“Dinner,” he says. “With my friend and me.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Adam makes a sound then, almost entirely helpless and needy, and nuzzles into Nigel more. He is the way he is, and he had convinced himself early on that that being what it was, he would be alone with it forever. No one ever stayed long enough, the frustrations got too much for most people and they left, and Adam let them._
> 
> _But not Nigel._
> 
> _Not him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by our beloved [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

It’s 4PM and Nigel is fretting. None of his shirts seem to fit the context of “dinner with a friend” regardless of how many times Adam gently reminds him that it is just dinner at home and that Harlan won’t mind how Nigel looks, because Harlan doesn’t mind a lot of things.

He goes, in the end, with a dark shirt and clean jeans and something on his feet that he’s sure could pass for casual without trying too hard. Adam dresses as he always dresses, and Nigel snares him around the middle until he squirms and giggles and confirms that yes, he is wearing the red underwear, and no, there is not enough time for Nigel to see before Harlan gets here.

“No swearing,” Adam reminds him quietly, smiling as Nigel curses, almost as though to get it out of his system before he can’t anymore. 

“Can I smoke?”

 

“On the balcony.”

“Drink?”

“We’ll have wine with dinner.”

“Fucking wine.”

“You’ll drink it,” Adam grins, nuzzling close and kissing Nigel’s neck. “It’ll be fine.”

Nigel hums, a lingering note of doubt, but buries the sound against Adam’s hair. Satiny curls spread against his cheeks and he touches a kiss there. Then another against his hairline, breathing in deep the mixture of scent and sweetness that still dizzies Nigel, years later from the first time he sighed him in. Then another, against Adam’s cheek. There, he lingers, at the corner of Adam’s lips even as they part for him.

“Can I kiss you?”

Adam laughs, a little snort, and squeezes their mouths warmly together. “Only a little,” he decides. “And no tongue.”

This draws a definite sound of dismay, kissed quickly away. Nigel spreads his hands across Adam’s back, down its sloping curve to the rise of his ass. He’s barely fucking touched him when there’s a buzz from the front door, and Nigel curses savage as he’s startled.

Adam regards him with lifted brows, and Nigel mutters an apology as he reluctantly lets him slide away.

“I still can’t believe you fucking planned all of this,” Nigel mutters, following him to the door. Adam presses the buzzer to allow his friend in, and Nigel takes the opportunity to wipe sweaty palms off against his pants.

“Because you don’t think I can?”

“Because I couldn’t fucking do it,” he says. “Arranging all this. Cooking. But you’re smarter than me so it fuck-... so it figures.”

Adam just grins and shrugs. It’s rare that he wants anyone new in his life at all, rarer still that he welcomes someone old. But Harlan has been in his life since Adam was a little boy, he had stayed in New York for a while after Adam’s dad died, to help out, but Adam was happy to see him go home. He hates to be a burden on anyone, and he knows he is a burden on everyone.

But somehow Nigel stuck around.

And that means a lot, to Adam and Harlan both.

“He was in the army with my dad,” Adam says as they hear footsteps in the lobby.

“In the fucking army, Adam?”

“I thought that would make you calmer,” Adam frowns gently, though his lips still curve in a smile.

“How the f-” Nigel swallows. “How. How would that make me calmer, darling?”

“He won’t be scared of you.”

“You need to watch more nature shows, darling,” Nigel snorts, as he draws himself up taller. He holds steady but he’s anxious. Never in his fucking life has he been asked to meet anyone’s family like this. To the contrary, those moments in which it’s happened have been accidental collisions with poor fucking results. Bristling and posturing, whispered conversations with their daughter or sister. No one, at any point, has been happy to find out that their friend or family has been fucking Nigel.

A bright laugh startles him from his snarl and he watches, keeping distance, as an older man offers his hand to Adam. They shake, and they hug, a quick pat on the back and Nigel breathes a little easier to see Adam happy as he is.

“Look at you!” Harlan declares, taking Adam in as Adam shuts the door behind, smiling. “It’s been too damn long.”

Nigel bites back a mention about cursing, swallowing his pettiness as the man turns to him.

“Nigel,” he says, stiff, offering a hand.

Harlan takes him in, Nigel the same height but slighter, muscles tense as though he wants to flee, expression one Harlan assumes Nigel thinks is neutral but it reads between desperate and relieved. A smile, warm, enough to narrow the darker man’s eyes in delight, before he takes Nigel’s hand in one broad one of his own and wraps the other around his shoulders.

“Nice to meet you, Nigel. You been taking care of my boy?”

“Trying,” Nigel says, surprised to find a smile inflecting his words. “He’s usually the one taking care of me, to be perfectly f-... frank about it.”

Harlan returns his smile and Nigel swallows down a belt of curses, allowing them to disperse. “Is that right?”

“Someone has to remind me to do the laundry,” Nigel says, pleased when this earns a laugh.

Harlan laughs easily and, apparently, often. Nigel can see how this would have been good for Adam as a child, to see someone positive, someone calm and collected and patient. He holds Nigel by the shoulder when he pulls away, finally says his name despite the fact that he knows that Adam has told him, and turns back to the boy he had come to see.

“Reminding you were always good at, weren’t you?”

“Reminding is easier than laundry,” Adam replies with a smile, and steps back to guide them both into the apartment properly. He lets Harlan take the space in, much unchanged but enough adjusted to warrant a look, several hums of appreciation. Adam grasps Nigel’s hand and squeezes.

Nigel blinks, his heart skipping a beat, and glances to their hands. He feels like a fucking kid again, embarrassed not by Adam but by the show of affection. The twining of Adam’s fingers between his own eases him back to breathing, and when Harlan isn’t looking, Nigel brushes a kiss across the back of Adam’s hand before releasing him.

“It’s good you kept the place,” Harlan says. “You know, me and your dad redid all this. Should’ve seen it before, unlivable. Laid down the payment for cheap before they started boosting it, neighborhood turning nice.”

“I know,” Adam says, and Nigel quirks a smile as he steps through to the kitchen.

“Tried to keep as much as we could, the brick and the tin ceiling, the floorboards. Used to have a pea-green carpet, horrible,” Harlan says, watching Nigel as he goes.

“Would you like some wine?” Adam asks, and Harlan shakes his head a little. Nigel meets Adam’s eyes and grins.

“Beer,” Nigel offers.

“That’s more like it,” agrees Harlan, accepting one of the silver cans when Nigel hands it to him. “I’m guessing you didn’t grow up in the city like Adam.”

“Another city,” Nigel says, pacing his words to give himself time to snare his swearing before it slides loose. “Or just outside it, anyway. Bucharest.”

“Can’t say I’ve ever been out that way,” Harlan says, taking a sip of his beer. “Is it different from New York?”

“Messier,” Nigel says, watching Adam move around the kitchen, a soda instead of a beer for him, as he checks on their dinner - not macaroni and cheese today - and gives them the space to talk. “A bit like the Bronx in some ways. Too populated, too many people in one place making it f-... hard to find your own place and establish it.”

“I grew up in a small town,” Harlan says, nodding as he watches Nigel watch him. “Coming here was, it was damn frightening for a sixteen-year-old kid looking to make it big.”

“In what?”

“You’ll laugh,” Harlan says, his own laugh already warming the words. “Jazz.”

“I can’t laugh at bravery,” Nigel responds, earnest. He grasps a platter inbound for the table from Adam and takes it for him, beer in the other hand. “Were you successful?”

“Ended up in the army, if that’s an answer,” Harlan smiles.

“What do you play?”

“Trumpet, still, when I can.”

Nigel’s smile is so wide that Adam stops to watch him for a moment, his cheeks warming. Not once has Nigel sworn. Not once has he made that hissing sound through his teeth in trying to resist it. He hasn’t even smoked and he’s halfway through his beer and Adam loves him like this, every bit as warm as Adam knows he can be and Nigel would argue.

“Like Dizzy Gillespie, with the puffy-fishery,” he says, blowing out his cheeks. Harlan claps a hand against his leg when he laughs, and takes the seat offered to him, shaking his head.

“Not quite like Dizzie, I’m afraid.”

“I like jazz,” Nigel says. Harlan laughs and Nigel’s brows lift as he grins. “I do, truly. There is a club in Bucharest, or was when I was there, down in the basement of an old building . It was where I went when I didn’t want to see anyone else, and only hear the music.”

“Romanian jazz,” muses Harlan. “I’ll be damned.”

“I doubt it compares to New York,” Nigel admits, amused. “But it fills similar spaces, dark corners and quiet alleyways, pensive notes pulling at the hearts of the lonely.”

“Damn, you’ve got the soul for it,” Harlan smiles, watching Nigel a moment more before Adam brings the food over and sits to join them, next to Nigel, watching Harlan across the table.

“How’s Denver?” He asks.

“Cold,” Harlan replies, leaning to spoon himself some potatoes. “Another small town with too much space and too little to do.”

“You could come back to New York,” Adam suggests, spearing a potato and nibbling it as he watches Harlan shrug.

“Hell, boy, what would I do in New York now that I’m retired?”

“Play the trumpet,” Adam says, and Harlan laughs again. Nigel watches the way Adam’s cheeks pinken and he smiles too, turning his eyes to Nigel and pressing his leg to his beneath the table.

Nigel’s throat jerks in a swallow, and it’s the only indication he allows of his internal battle not to think of Adam’s red underpants shamefully trapped beneath his trousers. He forks one of the pork cutlets to his plate and clears his throat, pushing his knee back against Adam’s in response.

“You’ve got to forgive an old man’s curiosity,” Harlan says, regarding them both with warm wrinkles in the corners of his eyes. “But how in the heck did you two meet?”

“Would you believe me if I said a jazz club?” Nigel teases, and Harlan squints, good-naturedly pointing with his fork.

“Not for a second.”

“I don’t like the squeaking,” Adam explains to Nigel, leaning closer, so close that Nigel would nuzzle him back to his seat if he could. He watches, though, Adam so near, the pale freckles beneath his blush, and sighs.

“Work,” Nigel says. “Stuck doing the same shi-... same f-... same things day in and day out for weeks.”

“I knew you’d find something,” Harlan tells Adam. “What do you do now?”

“Security systems and remedial action,” Adam replies with a smile. “I understand computers and he understands people, so we work well together.”

Harlan looks between them, notes the fondness with which Adam opens his entire body language to the man beside him. He is not closed off or nervous, he is not discontent and he is far from stressed. This man, in his own way, grounds Adam as Adam needs to be grounded. And Nigel seems to be just as fond of Adam as Adam is of him, a feat in itself - Adam is not easy to life with.

A slow nod and Harlan takes up his beer again with a smile.

“Good on you both,” he says, eyes narrowing in pleasure as he looks at Adam and Adam grins back. It’s enough to know that Harlan is fine with a lie by omission. It isn’t his business. What he cares about is that Adam is happy, and the boy certainly is.

They share the table long after the dinner is gone. Music is discussed frequently, and Nigel listens with interest to Harlan’s war stories. They compare their tattoos, Harlan’s faded but a pin-up girl much like Nigel’s own on his arm. Nigel takes it upon himself to finally clear away the dishes and empty cans of beer, leaving Adam and Harlan space to talk - mostly Adam, though Harlan unafraid to interject.

Nigel even takes it upon himself to kiss Adam’s head as his hand is caught in passing.

It’s altogether easy. Easy in a way Nigel’s never felt before, easy in a way he couldn’t have imagined. A lingering shame tastes briefly bitter as he recalls the fight that preceded this, his own doubt and suspicions, Adam’s righteous anger.

And then that too eases, and only when Harlan suggests he get back to the hotel before he dozes off at the table does Nigel realize how late it’s become.

Adam will see him again tomorrow, they agree, and a few more times before Harlan goes back to Denver. Nigel’s invited too and the consideration is both unexpected and welcome. He’s given a hug, at the door, firm.

“I looked after Adam for years after his dad died,” he says, and when their hands move together to shake firm, he smiles. “This does right by my heart, Nigel. You’re a good man. Even if that was a damn stupid place to get a tattoo.”

Nigel laughs before he can stop himself, ducking his head.

“The park, tomorrow,” Harlan reminds Adam as he turns to go.

Adam watches him, moves to stand behind Nigel and push up on his tiptoes to rest his chin up against his shoulder. Carefully, he swings the door closed and turns to nuzzle against Nigel’s neck.

“He liked you,” Adam tells him, arms loose around Nigel’s middle. “He thought you were funny and smart. Otherwise he wouldn’t have laughed so much.”

Nigel rests his cheek against Adam’s head, then turns to chase him for a kiss. Clumsy, pressed to his cheek, then another to his lips as he turns in Adam’s arms, then another longer, as he lifts Adam from the floor and slides his arms beneath him. Skinny legs wrap around his hips and Nigel leans back against the door, content.

Relaxed.

Happy.

“It was a good night,” he decides, eyes hooded even as a smile creeps wider. “And I didn’t curse one fucking time.”

“I’m glad you liked him,” Adam says, smile wide, hands resting on either side of Nigel’s face. “I’m glad he liked you. I knew he’d like you. You’re both brave and strong and clever and soldiers, in your own way.”

Adam looks at Nigel and Nigel realizes he is proud of him, not because he didn’t fucking swear, not because he didn’t say something stupid or mess up dinner or smoke inside. But because he is proud to have Nigel with him, at his side, known and seen as _his partner_.

Adam is proud to have him.

“Thanks for doing this with me,” Adam whispers.

Nigel hoists Adam higher and yields to the kisses that touch everywhere across his face, wonderfully relentless. His eyelids and his brow, the bridge of his nose and his chin. His mouth parts to give that to Adam too, and Nigel rumbles pleased and feline when Adam’s tongue softly curls against his own. He hadn’t made an ass out of himself or embarrassed Adam; he and Harlan had talked, really talked, without strife or challenge. And Adam -

Nigel would do anything with him.

Anything for him.

He would give Adam the fucking moon if he asked for it.

A careful shove from the door lurches them both forward. Nigel carries Adam towards the balcony, smiling as a little laugh snorts against his cheek. He works the door open with an awkward grasp and in the cool night air, he sets Adam on the railing and stands close enough that Adam’s arms and legs still ensnare him. With a wry look, he reaches for a cigarette and lights it, sighing smoky bliss.

“I don’t have any family,” he says. “No one I know, anyway. No friends, not like that.” Nigel runs his knuckles down Adam’s cheek, fond. “It’s a fucking honor you’d want me to know yours, darling.”

“Harlan’s the only one,” Adam says. “I would have liked for you to meet my dad but he died. Couple years before I met you, before I got brave enough to go out to do computer work and didn’t just advertise online for it.”

Adam squirms a little, holding tight to Nigel with his legs despite knowing that no harm will come to him with Nigel holding him like that. “I’m really glad you got to meet him. Even when my surprise to went wrong. You’re always patient with me.”

He bites his lip and watches Nigel smoke, it’s a ritual for him, the way he holds the filter, the way he takes a breath, the flick of his nail against it to ash the thing over the side. It’s practiced and comforting to him. Adam leans in to kiss the tattoo on Nigel’s neck.

Nigel groans low at the touch, as his pulse slows against Adam’s mouth, then quickens again when he sucks softly. Just a brief thing, but followed by another, and another. Nigel takes a long drag and tilts his head aside to bare his neck more to his darling.

“I wasn’t fucking patient,” Nigel murmurs. “I was paranoid and I was fucking mean.”

“Once,” Adam says. “You were, once. But every other time -”

“It doesn’t feel like patience,” Nigel tells him. “Patience is when you’re pissed off, annoyed, what-the-fuck ever else, and you push on anyway. I don’t have to be patient with you, darling. You just are the way you are, and I love you.”

Adam makes a sound then, almost entirely helpless and needy, and nuzzles into Nigel more. He is the way he is, and he had convinced himself early on that that being what it was, he would be alone with it forever. No one ever stayed long enough, the frustrations got too much for most people and they left, and Adam let them.

But not Nigel.

Not him.

"I love you," Adam tells him. "We'll fight sometimes, when we disagree, because you don’t step down from an argument and I am so stubborn, but that's okay - that's what people do in families."

Nigel tightens his arm, pulling Adam against him. A final drag finds his cigarette flicked to the street before he takes Adam from his perch once more. When they kiss, it’s soft - tender movements in sway with Nigel’s steps. When they kiss more, it heats - startling faster from the bang of the balcony door in time with their speeding pulse.

“Fucking Adam,” Nigel whispers, lips curling into a grin as Adam snags his hair tight. “How’d I ever get so fucking lucky?”

Nigel kicks off his shoes and they thud against the floor, as Adam twists his ankles together to toe off his own and leave them behind. A rumble resonates beneath his fingers as he works Nigel’s shirt open and curls forward, seeking as low as he can, forcing Nigel to strain to keep him from falling out of his grip.

They are frantic in the best way, missing each other since the fight, feeling the adrenaline from a night miraculously well spent with company. Adam latches his teeth gently to a nipple and Nigel growls, grasping his hair tighter, stroking down his back.

"Fucking gorgeous."

They make it to the bed this time, Adam seeking out with his hands as he’s set down before grabbing Nigel close and falling back with a laugh.

"I like you in that shirt," he says, tugging against it more. "You look so sophisticated."

Nigel snorts, but he smiles anyway. He lets Adam finish unbuttoning it. Lets Adam push it back from his shoulders, and tug off the undershirt beneath. He lets Adam seek for his belt and sighs as Adam works flushed lips against the hair on his chest. Strong fingers grasp Adam’s hair and stroke his curls between, tugging just enough to feel Adam moan against his nipple before he sucks enough to lift Nigel’s voice in turn.

“I like you in your fucking panties,” Nigel grins, laughing when Adam arches a brow at him and cool air settles across the wet skin on his chest.

“You haven’t seen them tonight.”

“Fucking thought about them, though.”

“And you like jazz,” Adam remarks, pulling Nigel’s belt free and laying it on the bed beside. It is Nigel, this time, who goes to his back, and Adam who sits over him.

“And you don’t,” observes Nigel in return, framing Adam’s cheek with his hand to pull him close again.

Three years and still rife with discovery, with newness. Three years and still an endless fascination with the other, their quirks and habits, their likes and dislikes. Three years and this - this, Nigel marvels, as their tongues and lips twist together - is still more thrilling than any drug trade or weapons deal or bar fight or quick fuck could ever be again. Hell, even Nigel’s own casual snorting and smoking has fallen by the wayside, and with little notice. His drinking, less quantity and frequency. His smoking - well. That and the swearing have stayed, but the rest -

Nigel blinks as Adam sits back to work off his own shirt. He’s not been made a fucking cuckold. He’s not been chained and neutered, turned into a fucking housepet. Everything he used to have and doesn’t now, Nigel’s given up in fits and starts on his own. Everything he has now but never did before is Adam.

A home.

A family.

Love.

Fucking love.

He grasps Adam’s legs and pulls him to sit over Nigel’s hips, bare now but for his boxers, as Adam coils in little rutting movements against him. But the sudden awe that shakes him is not seeing Adam stripping. It’s not even Adam’s cock stiff against his own. And laying a hand across his eyes because he’s sure if he watches Adam with any more wonder he’ll go fucking blind, Nigel laughs, helpless.

“Never thought I’d end up fucking married.”

Adam hums, smile wide, and presses little hands to Nigel’s stomach, stroking there, and up through the warm hair on his chest.

“Are we married?” He asks, and laughter fills his question as he presses himself over where his hands just touched. “Were you married?”

Nigel shakes his head, the tip of his nose brushing the warm blush of Adam’s cheek. “No,” he says, punctuating the word with a kiss. “Never have been. Were you?”

“No,” Adam echoes, closing his lips against Nigel’s scruffy cheek, already so despite shaving earlier in the day.

“Do you want to be?”

Adam blinks at him, smile still wide and breath warm and shivering against Nigel’s cheek. He sits up a little more and tilts his head to look at Nigel under him. Does he want to be married? The thought’s never crossed his mind. Adam’s never had reason to hate the thought of marriage or love it, it’s always been a foreign concept to him, something unattainable.

“What names would we use?” Adam asks after a moment, sitting up a little and back down in the same instant, winding Nigel enough that he can’t interrupt. “I have a legal name, the house is in my legal name, but you don’t. And we can’t use your aliases, there are connections to those, and making up another name wouldn’t help, and I wouldn’t want to marry Johann or Lucas or David, I want to marry Nigel.”

“So you do want to marry me?”

Adam laughs. “Are you actually asking?”

Nigel’s throat works on a swallow, a crease in his brow but a smile lingering, still, in the corners of his eyes. He can’t imagine allowing anyone else into his business. He can’t imagine uprooting the life had before, for anyone else. He can’t imagine wanting to lessen his shitty habits and work on his anger fucking management problems and do laundry and buy soda at three in the morning for anyone else.

He can’t imagine his life with anyone, anyone but Adam.

And he can’t imagine his life without him.

Nigel sweeps Adam’s hair back from his face and sets his palm to his cheek, and he grins wide as he asks, “Adam fucking Raki, will you marry me?”

Adam’s eyes narrow so much Nigel can barely see the blue beneath thick lashes, he can feel the dimples pulled deep on the corners of Adam’s lips and lets his hand be touched by Adam’s, lets their fingers slip together against Adam’s face as Adam makes a fussy pleased sound and nuzzles hard against his palm.

“Yeah,” Adam laughs, pushing Nigel’s hand aside to pounce on him properly and kiss him, teeth and tongue and slick lips and laughter, Adam’s fingers in Nigel’s hair just holding on. Nothing changes, he knows that, they will still argue and things will still annoy them and jobs will still go wrong and Nigel will still travel. Adam knows that. He knows. But somehow this fills a balloon in his chest with such warmth and light that he feels entirely giddy with the thought.

“Fuck,” Nigel mutters, dizzy from the flood between them as he kisses Adam over and over. Hands in his hair, he holds him back just long enough to breathe and it still doesn’t fill his lungs with how his whole chest feels like cracking, spilling heat. “I thought you were gonna go on about the fucking names again.”

Adam kisses him with a sweet, high hum, smiling. He twists and turns as Nigel unfastens his pants and shoves them down his hips, bending forward to his hands to wriggle free of them. Nigel is quick to snare Adam’s ass with both hands, fingertips teasing beneath the legs, and he ducks his head to see the bright red underpants he loves so much against Adam’s cock.

“Those fucking panties,” he swears, tugging them aside enough to stroke between Adam’s cheeks. “Fucking _you_ , look at you,” Nigel groans, chest heaving and cock filling thick as Adam sucks with wet little sounds against his tattoo. “Little bird, I fucking love you.”

Adam’s lips part on a gasp, he slips one leg flat against the bed to spread himself more against Nigel’s hand, to press close to him and feel his pulse, the heavy press of his cock up against Adam’s torso. Nigel is lovely. Wild and feral and cruel and strong and powerful and entirely Adam’s own, entirely, at once, kind and gentle and patient and so loving.

“I love you,” Adam whispers back, rocking back against Nigel’s hand, down against his cock, slipping a hand between them to palm Nigel slowly as he himself is fondled. It’s just this easy, for a long time it has just been this easy, to touch and be touched, find pleasure together and laugh, comfortable, after.

“What do you want to do?” Adam asks him, delighted, nuzzling and pliant and cuddly. “What should we do?”

Nigel attempts to twist into another kiss but finds only Adam’s cheek as he turns, laughing. “Anything you fucking want, darling.”

A coy little sound lifts from Adam as he rocks the length of his body, sleek and skinny and smooth, along Nigel’s own, scarred and strong and hairy. “That isn’t what I asked,” Adam smiles, and Nigel grazes his teeth across Adam’s shoulder when he rocks closer.

“Should I tell you?” Nigel asks, tugging Adam’s hair just enough to lift his head and watch his lips unfurl, a glimpse of white teeth past rose-red lips. “Should I tell you how all fucking night I’ve thought about your fucking panties and fingering you in them? Or how all fucking night I’ve wanted to feel your mouth on my cock?”

Adam shivers and keens, trembling hands set to Nigel’s belly. He arches to sit up and Nigel lets go of his hair, held in sway by every twist of Adam’s hips.

“Filthy,” Nigel praises him. “You’re so fucking dirty, darling, and you look so sweet no one would ever fucking suspect. I want you to suck me,” he snarls, grinning.

Adam shivers again, flushed and pretty, eyes wide and cock hard in his underwear as he kneels spread over Nigel a moment longer, before slinking down his body to nuzzle against his cock through his boxers. Adam had learned very early just how much he loved foreplay, just how much he enjoyed being teased and doing the teasing. He learned just how Nigel likes to be sucked, how hard, when to use teeth and when to moan, he learned that sometimes Nigel liked to hear him choke, but he would never push him enough to make him.

So Adam would do it himself.

Now, he licks long against the fabric of Nigel’s underwear, eyes closed and mouth open wide as he draws his tongue flat and hot over the thick vein visible standing stark against the grey fabric. Nigel’s voice drops octaves to a low, sustained groan, eyes rolling closed before he forces them open again. Adam watches as the thin material darkens beneath his tongue; he watches as Nigel’s cock twitches and rises in response to the pressure and wetness against it. He turns his cheek against the stiff organ and sighs a hot kiss against it, smiling a little when Nigel curses.

Nigel slips a thumb beneath his boxers to peel them lower, bringing the waistband just beneath his balls. An uncertain moment - wanting everything, always, all at fucking once - finally settles his hand to Adam’s hair. He guides him, never forcing, but revelling in the power Adam gives him in this to push Adam gently against his cock.

He parts his mouth against the base of Nigel’s shaft, coarse hairs caught beneath his lips, and curls his tongue against it, head tilting. It took time to learn, for both of them, neither having any fucking clue what to do around a cock that wasn’t their own when this started, but now -

Now Adam drags the tip of his tongue so lightly up the ridge of Nigel’s cock that his stomach clenches and it jerks upward towards the ceiling before bouncing heavy back against his belly.

“You’re fucking beautiful, darling,” Nigel whispers, harsh. “Look at me.”

Adam does. A deliberate blink and a raising of his eyes to Nigel above him, smile curling his lips as Nigel curses again and strokes Adam’s hair.

“Fuck, baby, look at you,” he breathes, drawing his nails gently over Adam’s scalp before letting him go to do as he wishes. And immediately, Adam takes the head of Nigel’s cock between his lips to suck. Despite Adam’s protests that he isn’t as good at this as Nigel is, he is far from bad at giving head. Adam knows how to turn and when to hum, where to hold as his lips stretch wide, where to squeeze and how to properly swallow.

He is beautiful, always looks entirely fucked out once Nigel is done with him, and always, always grinning at the end, bright and delighted. Now, he hums and swallows Nigel deeper, bringing his knees under himself and arching, coiling beautifully, so Nigel can see the curve of his back, just the shadow of the crevice of his ass peeking over the top of his underwear.

Nigel nearly loses it, biting back his orgasm with a curse and a shuddered breath. Teeth clenched, snarling, he rocks his hips upward and watches the way his cock disappears into Adam’s mouth. He watches the way his lips press in and spread flushed again as Nigel pulls out. And he watches, fucking rapt, the way that the movement ripples down to Adam’s ass and bends his back deeper.

A questioning noise, so little and sweet that Nigel sets his hand between his teeth to ease himself, tugs tight in his belly. He catches his breath and takes the invitation as offered. They don’t need words for this anymore, not after so long, and Nigel drops a hand to Adam’s hair again. Fisting his curls tight, he doesn’t bear down on him or force him into place, but he holds and he thrusts.

Across Adam’s curled tongue and swollen lips, smearing them with spit, Nigel fucks him deeply, slowly, foreskin slipped back and the tip of his cock rubbing the back of Adam’s throat.

Adam’s eyes close, and his hands grasp and curl in the sheets as he swallows thick around Nigel’s thrusting. He knows it could be cruder, could be crueler and harsher and part of him wants to try, but another, the part that deliberately misses a swallow to gently choke, knows that this is enough for them. He chokes again and lifts his eyes to Nigel to watch the tendons taut in his throat, the way his jaw is set, his teeth gritted as he watches Adam and curses loudly, falling back to bed and arching his hips higher still in a deliberate and aching motion for more.

Adam gives him that, as much as he can, pulling back to catch his breath when he needs to, stroking hard against Nigel’s cock as he nuzzles his stomach. He is leaking and hard in his pants, now, a dark patch in the red, and he brings a hand between his legs to squirm against as he watches Nigel and brings the head of his cock to his lips again.

“No,” Nigel whispers, half a laugh tangled in his muddled breath. Adam’s own cools the flushed head of his cock, wet and dripping spit down his shaft, and Nigel catches Adam by the jaw to bring him up the length of his body again. Skilled hands snap free his panties, held around one leg still before Adam can free both.

He goes where Nigel guides him. He trusts him. Entirely and resolutely, he trusts him and when Nigel catches him in a messy kiss, Adam moans. Nigel tugs Adam’s thighs up to straddle him, grasping his own cock to hold it steady.

“On top,” Nigel says. “Let me fucking see you, angel.”

Adam squirms more, flushed and pleased and so lovely, and arches so Nigel can press against him, slowly pushing in without prep or slick, because neither care at that moment, because Adam bends to bite his lip and squeeze his eyes shut and makes the softest little keening noise when Nigel penetrates him and starts to push in.

Adam sets his palms to Nigel’s chest, head down and hair hanging over his eyes as he walks his hands up to Nigel’s stomach and sits back against him with the motion, taking him deeper, spreading his legs further when that delightful sensation of involuntary shuddering takes over and Adam laughs.

“Ah.” Another press of white teeth to his bottom lip and Adam gasps, fingers curling against Nigel’s skin. “Mmm.”

And Nigel...

Nigel doesn’t fucking move.

He can hardly breathe, hardly feel his fingers enough to set them to Adam’s thighs. All he can do - all he wants to do - is watch. His angel’s fingernails leaving red marks against his skin. The pull of delicious tension that creases Adam’s brow as he sinks. The way his lips fall open lax when he rises up again. Adam’s cock stands stiff, each movement pushing beads of precome to drip thick against Nigel’s belly.

Nigel lets his gaze slip past the heavy breaths that spread Adam’s ribs, the soft curve of his stomach, the pale legs clenching tight around Nigel’s hips. He watches his cock disappear inside Adam again and again, as Adam twists a little and Nigel feels his head brush the sensitive nub inside him. Adam’s laugh, half-moan, ripples through Nigel and he groans, resting back against the bed to watch Adam fuck himself on his cock.

Adam shifts and wriggles, tries to keep a slow pace and fails, breathing out a laugh and arching his neck when he speeds up. He doesn’t touch himself, fingers more content to explore Nigel’s taut stomach and hairy chest, fingertips rubbing over a nipple and pinching it just to hear Nigel make a sound and set wide hands to Adam’s thighs.

“Always feels so good,” Adam whispers. “Always, everywhere, but being on top you go deeper, and _oh_ \- ”

Nigel shivers at Adam’s words, beautiful in their blunt honesty, in his description of exactly what he’s feeling. Slim fingers stroke along the ugly scar on his side and still there as Nigel reaches to take Adam’s cock in hand. He hardly strokes so much as squeezes, providing a hot tunnel for Adam to thrust into as he rides. Adam professes he’s not good in bed, he says that Nigel is better, and both are always happy for Adam to lay pretty and squirming while Nigel pleasures him.

But it’s a fucking falsehood, maybe the only lie - and that, unintentional - that Nigel can remember Adam ever having said.

He isn’t good in bed.

He’s fucking _wonderful_.

Quickly, Adam finds a rhythm, between deep strokes and shallow ones, curling his hips forward into Nigel’s hand. Whimpering, keening, aching with enjoyment, his voice carries loud in the bedroom and Nigel’s joins it, lower, harmony struck between. Adam sinks low, twisting his hips with Nigel buried to the fucking balls inside him, and then - only then - does Nigel buck up against him.

Deeper.

Harder.

Adam laughs, nearly loses his balance and catches Nigel’s free hand to support himself, other hand up to tug his own hair, down to bite his knuckle, lower still over his throat and to his nipples, peaked and sensitive as Adam rubs against them.

It’s a show, beautiful and improvised and entirely what both want. Pleasure, comfort, sharing and experiencing this together. Adam thinks, suddenly, of the first time he had brought Nigel home, how he had insisted that they would have sex, together, it wouldn’t just be a thing he did to Adam. And it never has been, not really, there has never been a moment when Adam did not want to have sex with Nigel, and when he didn’t he would say it outright enough for Nigel to back off.

It was rare.

And even then Adam wanted him, he just didn’t know how to express that.

“You’re gonna make me come,” Adam whimpers, squeezing Nigel’s hand tighter, allowing his blush to darken the freckles against his nose. Eyes closed and lips open and red, he is beautiful.

Nigel twines their fingers, holding tight. Adam’s body ensnares his own, pulling tighter in dizzying waves of pressure. Heat. Movement. And Nigel strokes him, to match the pace at which Adam works Nigel’s cock inside himself, and he begs a litany - _come for me, baby, come for me, you’re fucking gorgeous, fuck Adam, fucking come on me_ -

His voice jerks short, words lost to a moan as Adam spurts thick across his fingers and Nigel loses himself inside. Warm white spatters ribbon his stomach and darken his chest hair, both shuddering unsteady as the waves of their release unravel any control in their movements. Wetness slicks Nigel’s cock as he bucks against Adam trembling atop him. A slow curl of his wrist milks Adam to shaking, body clenching tight enough to empty Nigel entirely.

Adam makes a fussy sound when he gets too sensitive and Nigel lets him go. It takes several moments more before Adam pushes himself up enough to have Nigel slip free. Trembling, he rests over Nigel on all fours and grins, sleepy and soft, before leaning in to kiss Nigel again, slow and soft and loving. 

“You always feel so big,” Adam whispers, smiling when Nigel growls softly against him. “Feel you for hours after. Days, sometimes, if you’re rough, I like when you are, and I like you like this.” More kisses, like flutterings of gentle wings against Nigel’s face.

Nigel could fucking purr for it.

He wraps his arms around Adam and presses him close, kissing away the fussy noise he makes at the mess smeared between them, until Adam smiles again. Nigel turns to his side, Adam facing, and tucks their heads together. Gently, he wipes away the sweat from Adam’s brow, and thumbs softly across his lips.

Adam draws it between to suckle and Nigel shivers.

“You fucking haunt me, you know that? When I have to go away, you’re still there, darling. Begging to be kissed without saying a fucking word, rubbing against me. You wake me up from a dead fucking slumber when I dream about your hands on me and your breath against my ear, and I can’t sleep again until I imagine myself inside you again.”

Adam’s nose wrinkles and he nuzzles close, freeing Nigel’s thumb to kiss him instead.

“I love fucking you,” Nigel whispers, grinning when Adam’s cheeks heat. “You’re so fucking hot inside, you spread so pretty. The fucking sounds you make, sparrow, your little chirps and whimpers. And every fucking day that I wake up and see you I wonder how I got so fucking lucky.”

“You’ve got me for years now,” Adam reminds him sleepily, smiling wide and letting his eyes meet Nigel’s again. The only light is the one in the living room through the open door, but he would know him with no light at all. Adam sighs, long and slow, and rests a heavy arm over Nigel’s middle, nuzzling nose to nose. He wants to tell Nigel that Adam is the one who is lucky, he wants to tell him that he loves when Nigel fucks him too, that he loves when Nigel picks him up and carries him bodily to bed, or bends him over the dining room table, a slow peeling of his pants and underwear down his thighs before biting against the meat of his ass with a laugh and a low pleased growl...

“I love you,” Adam tells him simply, instead. “And I will for as long as I can think.”

And with a warm nuzzle, Nigel knows that he could never want for anything else.

He has a home.

A family.

Love.

And Adam fucking Raki.

**Author's Note:**

>  **taarradhin** _[tah-rah-deen]_  
>  — (noun) Arabic has no word for “compromise” in the sense of reaching an arrangement via struggle and disagreement. But a much happier concept, taarradhin, exists in Arabic. It implies a happy solution for everyone, an “I win, you win.” It’s a way of resolving a problem without anyone losing face.


End file.
